The court-martial trial of the U.S. Marine flier involved in last year’s Italian cable-car disaster opened yesterday, with charges that the pilot ignored orders to keep a safe altitude – resulting in 20 deaths at a ski resort.

Capt. Richard Ashby was flying his EA-6B Prowler dangerously low when the jet clipped a cable, sending a gondola filled with skiers plunging to the ground, prosecutors said.

”Whether because of arrogance or [because he’s] just plain cocky, Capt. Ashby chose to ignore the rules,” prosecuting Lt. Col. Carol Joyce said in the first day of testimony at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

In addition to flying his radar-jamming plane too low and too fast, ”whenever he had the opportunity” that day, Ashby broke regulations by putting the aircraft through a barrel-roll turn, she said.

Ashby, 31, faces up to 200 years in prison if convicted of negligent homicide, destruction of property and dereliction of duty stemming from the Feb. 3, 1998, tragedy.

Defense lawyers insisted Ashby had no way of knowing lift cables were strung across a valley in the ski village in Cavalese, Italy, when he plotted out a low-level training mission.